Following Shoshana’s lead, I’d like to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. My plan is to spend the long weekend reading as much as possible–under the direction of Richard (for whom I am very thankful), we have just finished a home renovation project that has added several new reading locations to our house, an array […]

In E.E. Cooper’s Vanished, Kalah is left to put together the pieces of a mystery after one of her best friends disappears and another commits suicide. Kalah, a junior, is newly best friends with seniors Beth and Britney, who have a long history of fighting and making up. Kalah and Beth have been hooking […]

Finding Paris by Joy Preble Spoiler-free part of the review: Sisters Paris and Leo (Leonora) always look out for one another. Throughout their mother’s many boyfriends and their many moves, they’ve found comfort in sticking together. Paris has recently graduated from Las Vegas High. Leo is focused on her future, busy studying for the SATs […]

Probably inspired by our seeing yesterday the wonderfully mysterious The Clouds of Sils Maria, I dreamed last night that we received for review a new YA novel that took the form of a high school yearbook. Apparently something very terrible had happened at that school, but the reader had to piece together clues in the text and […]

As we launch head-first into the busy holiday season, two family mysteries begin our week. The ever-popular Jodi Picoult is back with another title that mixes animal behavior and human drama. (I say “another” given 2012′s Lone Wolf, which we recommended here.) Leaving Time focuses on elephant research and a mother’s disappearance. Diane Chamberlain is […]

Greenglass House By Kate Milford Clarion Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-544-05270-3 Ages 9-12 On shelves August 26th When I was a kid I had a real and abiding love of Agatha Christie. This would be around the time when I was ten or eleven. It wasn’t that I was rejecting […]

Laura McHugh‘s debut novel is set in rural, small-town Missouri, deep in the Ozarks. This dark coming-of-age mystery follows a 17-year-old girl determined to investigate the murder of a friend from school, a search which leads to the earlier murder of her own mother. Told from multiple perspectives, the novel’s strengths include its setting (the […]

Lockwood & Company: The Screaming Staircase By Jonathan Stroud Hyperion Books for Children $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-4231-6491-3 Ages 10 and up On shelves September 17th I’m sick of historical fiction. I’m sick of contemporary fiction. I’m sick of realism and science fiction. Fantasy I watch with a wary eye. I don’t always feel this way but […]

Time travel, 200-year-old clues, and a gaggle of atypical princes round out Junior Library Guild’s picks of new mystery and adventure novels for school-aged readers. Perfect for summer reading, check out the latest offerings from Kate Messner, Andrew Clements, and Christopher Healy.

A Girl Called Problem By Katie Quirk Eerdmans Books for Young Readers $8.00 ISBN: 97800-8028-5404-9 Ages 9-12 On shelves now. Who says that mystery novels for kids all have to include the same tropes and settings? I tell you, half the time when a kid comes up to a reference desk asking for a mystery […]

Today’s reviews are all notable debut novels by women. I spent part of my spring break tearing through Kimberly McCreight’s Reconstructing Amelia, and let me tell you — teens are going to eat this up. It came out just yesterday, so go order a couple copies now. There are several appeal elements here. First, the […]

This weekend I happened upon Paul Collins’ essay “Vanishing Act,” about the writing prodigy Barbara Newhall Follett, whose The House Without Windows was published by Knopf in 1927 when the author was twelve. Our own Bertha Mahony loved the book, devoting three pages to it in the February 1927 Magazine. While Follett would go on to publish […]

Start with a missing object, ask a few questions, throw in some red herrings and what do you have? An unputdownable mystery! This fall’s releases offer openers and new entries in fun whodunit series, and standalones that will keep your patrons sleuthing for clues.